Java Desktop Libraries/Frameworks in 2019?

[Nayden Gochev]

Hello everyone,

just wanted a feedback or recommendation what are the options this days to write a Java desktop Apps.



Main Requirements:

- To works on Linux and MacOS (it is a business app no one uses windows)

- To have a bulletproof webview (it has to display videos, audio, documents, external pages as well, some webview/chromium is the best)



What I have verified so far:

- JavaFX WebView is a joke and cannot be used. It doesnt display, a youtube content, fonts looks blurry and just bad bad and is slow as hell, jx browser is too expensive - JavaFX a no go.

- Swing JCEF cannot be build on Mac Mojave for some reason, Pandomium also doesnt work for the same reason - a no go.

- DukeScript looks neet if I change the presenter and the webview presenter works, but I am scared about the GTK presenter under linux ... so it is a no go kinda.

- Vaadin - even if it is possible to create a Vaadin + NodeJS + Electron app you cannot display an external content like a webview component.. so a no go.

- QT Jambi latest release is in 2015.. so it is a no go.

- SWT - the performance on Mac OS is pretty bad but maybe is the only option ?



Also I have to share that I was looking on some non Java related alternatives:

- React native macos and react native desktop (the ubuntu one) more or less works, but I want it to be in Java (because of team knowledge and reasons) but this is an option with typescript MAYBE, big MAYBE

- Flutter is maybe an option in the future since Dart is really close to Java however as I said team knows Java.



So the outcome none of the Java related things released in the last 15+ years can actually display an OS independant client with a browser.

Please help me is there any other option/toolkit/library .. maybe I have to check GTK since it do exist also for mac ?

[Knute Snortum]

Welcome to the Ranch, Nayden Gochev!

Let me come to the defence of JavaFX a bit.  Below is a WebView in a JavaFX app that plays YouTube videos just fine (on Windows 10).  Did you mean embedded YouTube videos?

package net.snortum.play;

import javafx.application.Application;
import javafx.geometry.Insets;
import javafx.scene.Scene;
import javafx.scene.control.ScrollPane;
import javafx.scene.layout.VBox;
import javafx.scene.web.WebView;
import javafx.stage.Stage;

public class JavaFxWebPlay3 extends Application {
	
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		launch();
	}

	@Override
	public void start(Stage primaryStage) throws Exception {
		String url = "http://youtube.com";
		WebView webView = new WebView();
		webView.getEngine().load(url);

		VBox box = new VBox();
		ScrollPane root = new ScrollPane(box);
		root.setPadding(new Insets(10));
		box.setSpacing(10);
		box.getChildren().add(webView);
		
		primaryStage.setScene(new Scene(root));
		primaryStage.setTitle("YouTube in WebView");
		primaryStage.show();
	}
	
}

The fonts looking blurry could be that you don't have the exact fonts on your machine to display the page correctly.

...and is slow as hell...

Slow as hell doing what?

[Nayden Gochev]

Knute Snortum wrote:Welcome to the Ranch, Nayden Gochev!

Let me come to the defence of JavaFX a bit.  Below is a WebView in a JavaFX app that plays YouTube videos just fine (on Windows 10).  Did you mean embedded YouTube videos?

package net.snortum.play;

import javafx.application.Application;
import javafx.geometry.Insets;
import javafx.scene.Scene;
import javafx.scene.control.ScrollPane;
import javafx.scene.layout.VBox;
import javafx.scene.web.WebView;
import javafx.stage.Stage;

public class JavaFxWebPlay3 extends Application {
	
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		launch();
	}

	@Override
	public void start(Stage primaryStage) throws Exception {
		String url = "http://youtube.com";
		WebView webView = new WebView();
		webView.getEngine().load(url);

		VBox box = new VBox();
		ScrollPane root = new ScrollPane(box);
		root.setPadding(new Insets(10));
		box.setSpacing(10);
		box.getChildren().add(webView);
		
		primaryStage.setScene(new Scene(root));
		primaryStage.setTitle("YouTube in WebView");
		primaryStage.show();
	}
	
}

The fonts looking blurry could be that you don't have the exact fonts on your machine to display the page correctly.

...and is slow as hell...

Slow as hell doing what?

hmm great ok I will try again I was using Java 8 on Mac OS X Mojave.
The playback of videos was not working...

[Daniel Demesmaecker]

I make all my standalone apps in springbooot where I use javaFX to handle the frontend, I had never any issues.
I'm a big fan of javaFX and even started to use it for my webapps, so I was glad to see Knute defending it.
If your app is slow it's not javaFx's fault, but the way it's build

[Nayden Gochev]

Daniel Demesmaecker wrote:I make all my standalone apps in springbooot where I use javaFX to handle the frontend, I had never any issues.
I'm a big fan of javaFX and even started to use it for my webapps, so I was glad to see Knute defending it.
If your app is slow it's not javaFx's fault, but the way it's build

Hello there, no it is not slow. It just was not able to render correctly a lot of things.
Basically I tried with youtube and vimeo because this client have a lot of technical videos on this two platforms that sometimes he wants to link inside the app.
It is more like a HOWTO videos. Also I indeed noticed some font differences and etc but this ones can be ignored and I dont think anyone will notice them.

Still I do not know since JavaFX is platform dependant anyway why we do not have a platform dependent chromium component or something like that. The JavaFX Webkit implementation doesnt render a lot of stuff and is quite slow, just open the oracle website for example.

[Daniel Demesmaecker]

I think you ment platform independent?
What jdk are you using? Are you using the build in javaFx or the 'new' open javaFx libary?

[Knute Snortum]

Nayden Gochev wrote:The playback of videos was not working...

I did notice while trying to get JavaFX on a Raspberry Pi that video playback is not supported yet.  I don't know if that's true only on the Raspbian distro of Linux or all Unix-like OSs (including macOS).

[Nayden Gochev]

Daniel Demesmaecker wrote:I think you ment platform independent?
What jdk are you using? Are you using the build in javaFx or the 'new' open javaFx libary?

Since it is an enterprise they still use Java 8 and not the OpenJFX or Java 11.

@ Knute Snortum no the video playback is workign at least in the media control ;) but this is different here I am speaking about an embedded html5/flash player inside the webview component.